


After Midnight

by posingasme



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Fluff and stuff, M/M, Mechanic Sam, Musician Castiel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-02
Updated: 2017-09-26
Packaged: 2018-12-10 01:15:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 19,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11680950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/posingasme/pseuds/posingasme
Summary: It's just Castiel's luck to get caught up in a scandal he had nothing to do with, and fall from grace when powerful bad guys become corrupt. Now he needs a place to weather the storm, and he finds himself moving from Bari, Italy to Clinton Lake, Kansas. His neighbor is a ridiculously hot mechanic, who knows nothing about classical piano or classical violin. He is a beleaguered musician who knows nothing about classic cars or classic rock. If only they had a little in common...





	1. Bari

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SharpieStealr8200](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SharpieStealr8200/gifts).



Martelli was too well-known. If he wanted peace and quiet, he needed to be away from the music world entirely, and Castiel Martelli would never be able to disappear. He needed to become someone new, in a new place, where no one had ever heard of him, nor the scandals his name had been through. 

He needed a new name until things calmed down, a name not tainted by association with Angelo Grigori’s. 

So when Luna Okami had offered him her lakehouse near a small city in the American Midwest, to seek refuge during this horrible ordeal, he had been utterly relieved. Attorneys and investigators could contact him if they needed to, but he could be left alone otherwise, until the whole mess blew over. 

Castiel was also more than a little surprised that Okami apparently considered him “a friend and trusted colleague who deserved better than the treatment he was receiving in the wake of the Grigori scandal,” which was how she had described him to a reporter. 

“I'm fine, Luna. I'm a musician. I'm accustomed to criticism. Let them pry all they like. They'll only find what everyone else has found, that I was simply a stupid man afflicted with inexcusable levels of naivety. I had no idea that Angelo was involved. I've told them all everything I know, and now they won't leave me alone. I'm so sorry they have been accosting you and others at the symphony for comments. I've tried to get them to stop-”

“No,” she said firmly. “Do not worry about us. You did the right thing, and now everyone is treating you like the criminal. You need to get out of Bari, Martelli, let alone Rome and Milan. Just for a few months. Don't you have somewhere you can go?”

Castiel smiled sadly. “Your Italian is becoming so fluent, Okami. I'm proud of you.” He sighed. “No. I don't have any idea where I could go. I suppose I could get a hotel someplace, but that seems wasteful.”

She laughed a little. “Martelli, don't pretend you don't have money.”

He frowned. He was standing in his practice room, overlooking the water below, through double glass doors that were wide open, letting in the gorgeous sea air. He wouldn't pretend he wasn't comfortably wealthy. Too much work had gone into becoming so. His father had been a poor carpenter his whole, short life, but every spare lire had gone to Castiel's passion and talent for music. His father had been furious when Castiel had joined the military as a means of helping financially. He could still see the tears in the man's eyes as he insisted that he could have applied for an alternative to the compulsory military service, or at least worked in an office or another position which would allow him to continue as a musician somehow. 

His father might not have worried. The military career Castiel had sacrificed his true love and talent for ended abruptly when a high-ranking officer had heard him picking at a piano in a club one night. Before Castiel knew it, he was made the personal musician for the President of the Senate in the Parliament. He split his time between playing private parties for that official, and selling out venues all over Europe as a soloist, and as the first violin concert master at Milan’s La Scala opera house. It was a life he could never have even dreamed as the son of a carpenter. 

It was his great misfortune, then, to have accidentally discovered evidence of corruption in the Senate. He had not known his own patron was at the forefront of the criminal activity which was lining the pockets of several powerful politicians. He had been compelled by his conscience to bring the evidence to the attention of Angelo Grigori and the authorities. 

But if he thought that would be the end of his role, he had been naive. The press had swarmed him, the investigators had interrogated him, and his entire world, which had been so dreamlike his whole adult life, was now a nightmare. There was no one in the country, and few throughout Europe as a whole, who didn't know his name and face from the constant media frenzy. 

“No,” he sighed again. “I won't pretend there's no money. But the fact remains that I still have nowhere to go.”

“Vance Fulspirit has a loft in Paris. He would love to board you for a while,” Okami suggested. 

“Maybe. But I want to be further away.”

She paused, then spoke again firmly. “You know what? Your English is good. I know exactly where you're going.”

“I don't know anyone in the U. K., Luna.” That wasn't true. He just didn't know anyone he would feel comfortable visiting. It was strange enough to be on the phone with Luna Okami, who he only just realized this morning considered him a friend. Castiel didn't have many friends. Especially not anymore. 

“No. America. You're going to go to my mother's old place on Clinton Lake in Kansas.”

Castiel frowned. “What?”

Arrangements were made almost entirely without him. He was swept into it all, just like every other major event in his life so far, and now he was here, in a foreign country, in the middle of nowhere, staring out at the massive expanse of nothingness, and the neighbor who owned the sublet apartment attached to his new home had asked him his name. 

“Mezzanotte,” he croaked out finally. “My name is Castiel Mezzanotte. Cas, it is easier.”

The incredibly handsome man in the gray tee shirt smiled warmly. “Cas. I'm Sam Winchester. Welcome to the lake, Cas. Are you by yourself? Can I help you move in?”

“I am only myself,” he confirmed. “And most things shall be delivered. But I appreciate help with my instruments. You have time?”

Hazel green eyes sparkled, and Castiel was suddenly overwhelmed by the quietly beautiful, sexy man he would be living next to for the foreseeable future. “My pleasure, Cas Mezzanotte.”

Castiel thought maybe he was going to like it here.


	2. Opus 49, number 4

Sam hadn't stopped smiling all evening. He had caught himself at it several times while getting ready for bed. Dean would have rolled his eyes at him.

But Dean couldn't see him, and he surrendered to the giddy feeling in peace.

The new neighbor, the friend of Mrs. Okami’s daughter, was gorgeous.

Sam had heard the car pull into the drive, and had been curious. No one had lived in the adjoining unit since Mrs. Okami had been moved to a retirement center in Lawrence, and it had been at least nine months since her daughter had come to town and packed up her things when she had died. Sam had been quick to offer help to the young woman, carrying boxes and helping secure the house. She had thanked him for always being available to help her mother with anything and everything she had needed. She had sighed about finding another tenant for the main house, but Sam had heard nothing in all this time.

And now, here he was.

Sam had felt his heart stumble when he caught sight of the man who would live on the other side of his wall. He had gotten out of the car, and stepped out to stare at his surroundings in bleak weariness, and Sam had rushed to his side to introduce himself and offer help.

Between the endearingly messy dark hair and the sexy Italian accent in that deep voice, Sam had melted into uselessness. Then the man had smiled tiredly, and he had realized how intensely blue those eyes were, and Sam had heard himself offering to help, but on the inside he was trying to retreat into a protective ball. His shoulders rounded, and he could feel that ridiculous urge to make himself look smaller, less noticeable.

They had talked very little, but Castiel had thanked him warmly, and held his hand in both of his in a kind handshake as he thanked him for helping him with his instruments. Sam had nodded mutely, and tried to return the smile, and back out of the door, only to nearly fall off the small porch to get to his own apartment next door. It had not been his most impressive moment.

He had lain awake for too long smiling stupidly about the man next door.

But now it was well past midnight, and Sam had to be at work in less than four hours, and old Mrs. Okami’s piano, which had been dormant since her daughter had been there last, was wide awake next door.

He had tried putting his pillow over his head. He had tried moving to his couch. He had turned up his fan. There was no escape from the moody minor keys on the other side of the wall.

Finally, he had no choice. He took hold of his phone, and stared at the number Castiel had given him earlier. “What an awful way to welcome your new neighbor,” he chided himself as he tapped out a text message. “By telling him he's got to shut up.”

But he sent the message, after rereading and refining it four times, and lay back down to find out if he had gotten his request through, and if Castiel would honor it without being offended.

A moment later, the piano stopped abruptly.

Sam held his breath.

It took only a minute; the music began again. But this time, it had changed entirely.

A soft smile came over Sam's face, and he felt a content sigh emerge. He closed his eyes and felt warm all over as he drifted off.

Castiel Mezzanotte was playing him Brahm’s Lullaby.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lullaby and goodnight,  
> With roses bedight,  
> With lilies o'er spread  
> Is baby's wee bed.  
> Lay thee down now and rest,  
> May thy slumber be blessed.
> 
> Lullaby and goodnight,  
> Thy mother's delight,  
> Bright angels beside  
> My darling abide.  
> They will guard thee at rest,  
> Thou shalt wake on my breast.


	3. Clinton Lake Mechanics

“Hey! I'm talking to you.”

Sam pulled his head out from under the hood of the Trans Am. “What?”

Dean rolled his eyes. “What's wrong with you today?”

He looked down at the engine. “Why? What did I do?”

“You've been in that car’s guts for three hours, when it should've taken two at most, and I've been having a conversation with myself for fifteen minutes.”

“Oh.” If that was all, Sam could get back to work. 

“Did you get any sleep last night? You been asleep under there.”

“I have not. Shut up. You said this was my last thing for today. Nothing wrong with taking my time.”

Dean snorted. “Dad would call that you taking his time.”

“And Dad also said never leave a job unfinished even if it takes all night.”

“Yeah, well, he ain't the one gotta lock up after you.”

“I'll lock up. Go home.”

Dean sighed, and shoved his brother over. “I'll finish this. You grab us both a beer and tell me why you ain't sleeping.”

Sam frowned. “I got this, Dean.”

“I know you got this. But go get a couple beers instead. You haven't talked to me all day, and I'm sick of hearing my own thoughts. If I gotta put this old girl back together so you'll talk to me, fine.”

He snickered, and went into the shop to wash up and grab the beers from the refrigerator in the back. He had lost his khaki button-down shirt over an hour ago, and now he pulled off his grease-covered gray tank top, and took one of the spares he and Dean kept in the back room to throw over his head. He caught a glimpse of his own reflection in the windows, and sighed. A large hand clawed through his sweaty hair. 

He hoped Castiel Mezzanotte wasn't looking out the window when he walked home. 

“Okay. What were you saying while I was elbow deep in that junker?”

Dean scowled, but didn't look up. “She's not a junker. Just needs some love.” He grunted with effort, then spoke again. “I was asking if you were working up at the marina at all this weekend.”

He popped open his beer and took a long pull from it. “Nessie doesn't need me at the marina bar, and Acheri said he doesn't have enough work for me. Says he's got like two pontoons and a skiff motor, and that's it, so he's just going to do them himself.”

“Wow. What're you gonna do with a day off? When was the last time you even had a day off?”

“I'm going to sleep, and I can't remember.”

“Sleep!”

“Yeah. That's what you do when you don't have enough money for days off, but you're being forced to take one anyway.” Sam shrugged moodily. “I don't know. I'll probably wander in here and work off the clock. I haven't audited the books in a while.”

Finally, Dean stepped away from the engine and slammed the hood closed. He leaned on the car while he wiped his hands on his rag, and eyed his brother. “Sam, we talked about this. If you need cash-”

“Then I'll find more work. I'm fine, Dean. Really. Let it go.”

He frowned at him. “Sammy, this is ridiculous. You bust your ass every damn day. You need a break. Hell, you need to get laid.”

Hazel gray eyes blinked into a warning glare. 

“I'm serious! You never see anybody outside of work! And I don't like you working for Terry Acheri. He's a creep.”

Sam stared at his bottle. “Yeah. Well, I need the money.”

“I can-”

“Dammit, Dean, I said let it go! I made my bed, and I'm lying in it. And I'm doing okay.”

Dean nodded slowly. “Yeah. Well, I hope you'd come to me before you got in any trouble,” he said in a low voice.

“It won't come to that. But for the record...Yeah. I know you'd help.”

It would have to be enough. Dean sighed. “But you're literally losing sleep, Sammy. I can't help it if that worries me.”

Suddenly, a small smile brightened his face. “Yeah. That's not...I wasn't losing sleep over that. There's a new guy living in Esther Okami's house.”

Dean's eyes rolled, and he drank his beer through a smirk. “He know you exist, or did you just stare from your curtains?”

“Would you shut up? I don't know why I tell you things.”

“I'll walk you home, and we can peek out the curtains and see if we can get a glimpse of the cute boy next door, and giggle together.”

“You're an asshole.”

“I think I'm adorable.”

“You're wrong.”

“And you're awkward. Have you even tried to talk to him?”

Sam drained his bottle, and tossed it at the recycling bucket. “I helped him move in.”

“And talked to him.”

“There was...some talking.”

“Sammy.”

He threw his hands up. “What? I get nervous around smart, goodlooking guys! And he's Italian anyway. So there's that.”

“You're living with a goodlooking Italian guy you're afraid to talk to? Come on, is he Michael Corleone, or what?”

“You think Pacino is good looking?”

But Dean didn't sidetrack easily when it came to Sam's nonexistent sex life. “You're never going to hook up if you don't talk to people, Sam. It's part of the deal.”

Sam tried to smirk at him. “Stop worrying so much. Look, I'm going to go start my first weekend off in probably three months. You need anything else here?”

His brother sighed. “No. Go on. Call me tomorrow if you're bored.”

“I'll be asleep.”

The whole walk home, he smiled to himself as he thought about the lullaby that played next door the night before. It had been a response Sam wouldn't have expected in a thousand years. It spoke to the Italian man's gentle nature, and maybe even a little sense of humor too. Sam hadn't seen him before work. He wished he could have thanked him for being so gracious. Then again, Dean wasn't wrong. Sam might have just hidden from him.


	4. A Delightful Art

It was utterly strange and unnerving being not busy. Castiel could not think of a time in his life when he had been not busy. It was a whole new state of being, and even if it wasn't entirely unpleasant, Castiel was not certain he liked it. Not busy was a little bit scary. Not busy left him alone with his thoughts in unfamiliar ways. 

So he could hardly be blamed for wandering aimlessly from the house, then randomly deciding to perch on a stone bench overlooking the pier. There was a disturbing lack of structure in living in this place. He was an artist, but he was a classical musician. He preferred structure, thrived in it. Now he had time to himself, no concerts or parties or traveling or any of the other things which kept him running, and he had the freedom to use his time any way he wanted. He was at a loss as to what he wanted. 

That is, he didn't know what he wanted until he happened upon it abruptly just a moment after sitting to stare bleakly out at the lake. 

A dark head crested from the water below, gasping in a breath that sounded both overdue and blissful somehow. It was Sam, the man from next door. The beautiful, sweet, quiet man who helped. 

Beautiful didn't even express what this man was, Castiel realized. 

Large hands smoothed hair back out of a handsome face, and Sam shone tan and brilliant in the late morning sun. His bare chest made Castiel's breath short out entirely, as he emerged from the water to stand at the small floating dock. He had just a moment to appreciate long, strong legs and powerful bare arms, and then Sam was diving in again. He disappeared from view, like a mirage, for nearly a minute, then crested again far from his entry point, with a happy smile and bright eyes Castiel could nearly feel from a distance. 

This lake was certainly not his Adriatic Sea. But suddenly, Castiel could see it had a charm and beauty all its own. The waters were calm and the trees were scenic. And the local wildlife was lovely.

It did not occur to Castiel in all the time he watched Sam swim that perhaps he shouldn't. That thought didn't cross his mind at all when the smiling Adonis in green trunks sighed happily and came out of the water to dry off on the dock. It didn't even enter his head when Sam shook out his mane and spread out the towel.

On the other hand, it smacked him in the face when Sam skinned the wet trunks off, revealing his incredible physique in all its natural glory. But it hardly mattered, since he was completely incapable of looking away. 

Castiel had seen hundreds of Greco-Roman statues in his travels. But, as his friend Luna would say to get a rise out of her European peers...God blessed America. 

Before he could successfully blink, Sam had slipped into a pair of dry worn out blue jeans from his canvas bag. He sat at the edge of the dock and let his toes dip into the water while he stared out over the lake in quiet contentment.

Castiel let out the breath he had been holding. 

He stumbled to his feet, and that was the mistake which called attention to him. 

Sam's sharp eyes flicked toward him, and he froze under the shocked gaze. 

The man leapt up, and nearly crashed back into the water. His face was turning delicious shades of pink, and there was unmistakable dread and realization on that lovely face. 

Castiel raised his hands as though calming a frightened street dog. “Sam,” he called quickly, across the short distance. “Hello. I apologize for the scare. I am not meaning to surprise. I just come to look out at water, and you are here. But, Madonna mia, bell'uomo, you are simply beautiful! I cannot help to be watching! This makes for you to be uncomfortable now. I apologize.”

Sam’s mouth had dropped open, but he snapped it shut now. “No! No, I'm not…” He scrambled to rip open his bag, and pull out a tee shirt similar to the one with the vee neck that he had been wearing when they met the day before. “I'm definitely not…” The shirt went over his head, and Castiel was sorry to see the last of the powerful chest and shoulders disappear under it. Then Sam frowned, and yanked the shirt back off to twist it inside out. “I'm not…” 

Castiel watched with both amusement and a spark of concern as Sam struggled back into the shirt correctly. He enjoyed the pink cheeks and it only piqued his curiously further. Surely this man was aware of how attractive he was. It was probably that he wasn't used to being told so by a man. Italian men could be prudish about such a thing too, though they generally accepted a compliment with a bit more finesse, regardless of the gender delivering it. 

Sam was short of breath by the time the shirt had been resolved. “I'm not uncomfortable.” He sighed it out in frustration, as if he didn't even expect Castiel to believe him. “You just startled me, that's all. Have you, um, were you there long?”

“Not at all,” Castiel reassured him. 

Relief shone in his new friend’s face. “Oh. Good.”

“Only enough that I see you are, ehhh…” He searched for the words. “Ehhh, you are very good swimmer. And impressive when nude.”

In a flash, the pretty pink was gone, and Sam became gray. A sound came out of his pale lips, as though he had tried to speak and failed badly. 

Castiel gave him a warm smile, wondering why the man seemed to be holding his breath. He stepped closer for the ease of conversation. “So no harm! Especially not to me. You got more sleep in the night after I play different, no?”

“No. What? Yeah! Yeah, thank you. I don't mean to be rude…”

The musician waited patiently, because it sounded to him as though Sam intended to continue. But he wasn't making words again, so Castiel moved on. “I, ehhh, I don't know what you do at Kansas for evening. But I need to find shops. There is no espresso machine among Esther and Luna’s kitchen. You are busy, or you could show me to go to shops?”

Sam licked his lips, and then pulled the lower one into his teeth to chew on. At last, he shrugged. “Yeah, I mean, if you need to shop for some things, there are some nice places not too far. I can drive you, if it would help.” His eyes widened. “Or directions. If that's what you mean.”

Blue eyes narrowed. “Sam, is something wrong? My English is quite good, I thought. Do I make a mistake with you?”

“Oh, God, no. No, your English is amazing. Your voice and accent...It's amazing,” he sighed and nodded, as though he were confessing, which Castiel did not understand. Then the man took a breath and rushed it out in a sentence he clearly had not thought through first. “I'm not naked usually.” The pretty blush was back, and Castiel liked looking up at it flowering across those lovely cheekbones. “I've been living alone here for a really long time, and I've never known the Okamis to use the dock, and sometimes I'm done swimming, but-but I like to read out here, and so, I just sometimes change right on the dock when it's a little too cool to stay in wet trunks, and-”

Castiel put his hand up. “Sam, you speak very fast. Are you...are you apologize for being nude?”

“Of course I am!”

He blinked, then began to smile with fresh amusement. Americans were so intimidated by their own bodies. “Sam, I have already told to you it was no harm to me. I rarely am seeing such beauty. Never apologize for showing your body. It is a delightful art. If it were mine to say, I would have you nude always.”

This noise was a whimper. 

A frown crept onto his face then. “Or you are upset I have seen you. I'm sorry, my friend. I have-how you call it-jet lagged. I am not at my best to notice such thing. Today is six hours before Bari. It should be near to dark now, you know?” He used his hands to help him express the effect the time difference had on him. At last, a dreadful thought struck him. “You are worried about I am a man. You think I should not say things to you about beauty. I understand. A sadness. I thought we could have made friends.” He took a step backward, and let his eyebrow peak, even as he lowered his gaze. 

Sam grabbed his elbow before he could turn away. “No! Cas, I'm sorry. It isn't that at all.” He dropped the man's arm, and laughed, putting his hand through his wet hair. “I'm sorry. I guess I spend so much time alone these days that...I was just caught off guard, and I got embarrassed, that's all. It isn't your fault.”

The musician began to smile again. “A man who looks as you do should never have embarrass.”

Finally, Sam gave him a tiny smile. “That's-Thank you. Let's start again. You need a coffee machine.”

Alarm pinched Castiel's forehead. “No. Espresso.”

“Right. That's coffee.”

He watched him with some suspicion. “No. I know what you call coffee, and it is not. Your coffee is sad.”

Sam burst into laughter, and it rang like music in Castiel's ears. “Our coffee is sad?” he repeated incredulously. 

“Yes. And you put into it things to make it agreeable, but it never is. Americans have confuse coffee and tea, and do neither correct. The French are nearly as bad.”

For some reason, this amused Sam greatly, and the earlier tension was forgotten. “Have you been here before?”

Castiel watched him collect his belongings, and then they began walking back toward the lakehouse. “I played at New York and once in Washington capital. But it was a quick visit with many concert, so I see very little. Paris and London and Toulouse. Moscow, Munich, Madrid. Always I go, and never I stay.”

Sam's eyes were bright as he stared at him. “You've played piano in all those cities?”

“No. Well, yes, but often I am violinist or cellist. But my first love is for pianoforte. It is like my heartbeat, the music from her. My every breath is her song.”

The large man huffed a laugh quietly as they walked. “I'm sorry to have to ask you to stop breathing late last night.”

Castiel chuckled. “It is no problem for me. I now know it is heard on your side, and I will be more thoughtful. You were better to sleep when I hushed her?”

He couldn't tell what that expression in Sam's eyes was. “Yeah. I loved it. My mom...Well, I didn't know my mom, but my brother told me my mom used to play Hey Jude on the piano now and then. It was like the only thing she could play, I guess. The piano was old and out of tune, but it belonged to her mother, so we kept it around. I don't know where it is now. Maybe Dean's got it in storage with a lot of other things. Anyway, I can remember, long after she died, Dean would get up in the night when he couldn't sleep, and pick at the piano, trying to remember the melody. Probably not after he turned ten, but I remembered it last night when you played Brahms.”

Castiel let his own eyes sparkle with pleasure as he listened. “You know Brahms, then?”

“Oh. Uh, maybe a-a little. You know. Some. I don't play, of course. I just...you know. Listen. To classical music.”

This delighted Castiel. “You will think of your favorite, and I play it for you!”

Sam took a deep breath. “Oh, I, uh, I don't know. There are so many; I mean, how do you choose, right?”

“Think of this tonight. Tell me in time. I will play what make Sam Winchester happy.”

His new friend ducked his head shyly. “That's nice of you. You play whatever you enjoy, and in the meantime, I'll-I’ll try to nail down my favorite.”

The smile on the young man's face was melting his heart. He felt the last of his jet lag wash away. “In time. But first, espresso! You take me to shops, and I will make for you a true espresso, and I will make a tiramisu or Panna cotta! You are not busy?”

“No,” Sam murmured. “Not busy.”

Castiel sighed happily. Not busy was turning out to be a good thing after all.


	5. Relearning to Breathe

He blamed Dean. It could all be led back to Dean’s teasing. Dean had teased him about his inability to flirt, or even so much as chat with attractive men, since learning Sam was gay. That had been his main takeaway from the coming out conversation. Now Dean understood how his dorky kid brother could be so cool with women but seemed to become an idiot when certain guys were nearby. 

Guys like Gabriel Norseman. 

“He just doesn't smell right,” Dean had muttered once. 

Sam had balked. “Sure, not to you! You prefer to date women who smell like French fries and alcohol!”

Dean had grinned. “That's true. But not what I meant.”

“He's fantastic. He treats me like I'm the best thing that ever happened to him, Dean. You haven't been able to give me any real reason you don't like him.”

His brother shrugged. “I don't know why. He just doesn't smell right.”

“He smells incredible. Just leave me alone.”

Gabriel had been a breathless adventure from minute one. There were gifts, and beautiful cars, and jewelry, and there were passionate nights, and hot parties, and it all left Sam in a state of dizzy awe. Sam was addicted to the man's confidence, his savoir faire, his drama. It was like nothing a young, rural mechanic’s son had ever known. Just a wink or the lift of an eyebrow sent Sam diving into the flame. 

So Sam had been completely blindsided when Gabriel had disappeared. They had thrown another wild party that lasted all night, and their bodies had writhed together in bliss, and they had growled out forever promises into one another's skin, just like every day and night for weeks. Then, by the time Sam awoke in a fog one morning, Gabriel had vanished, as though he had never been there at all. 

There was no trace of him, not anywhere. Sam had searched, had prayed, had done everything he could think to do, but Gabriel was gone, and within a week, it became clear why. 

When the police knocked on his door, he was initially so grateful they weren't there to tell him that his lover was dead that he burst into tears. Then they explained. And then they took him in for questioning. 

Dean had come to pick him up, but he hadn't been able to look his big brother in the eye. 

So Gabriel, it turned out, wasn't a Norseman at all. He was actually Gabriel Arch, a con man and a thief. Most of the money he lavished on Sam had been via credit card fraud. It had taken nearly two dark years for Sam to untangle himself from two months of living in Gabriel's light, and he had emerged financially and emotionally broken after all was said and done. To his credit, Dean had never reminded him that he told him so. But Sam refused all monetary assistance Dean offered him while the debts were being handled. Gabriel had put everything in Sam's name. It was a constant reminder that Sam had been stupid. And it was too humiliating to let Dean give him money. 

Dean had learned other ways to help. He had made him full time at the shop, which helped a lot. He had introduced Sam to Nessie at the marina bar, to get him some work there now and then. He bought too much at lunch and insisted Sam take the leftovers home for dinner. Most of the clothes Sam had acquired in the past three years were things Dean had bought “accidentally” one size too large. They each pretended they didn't know what he was doing, and that got them through the awkwardness of it all. Even after the lawyers had settled how much Sam actually owed whom, and how much could be written off as a fraudulent debt on Gabriel Arch’s record, Sam had been mentally, emotionally, financially exhausted. 

And try as he might to loathe Gabriel, he just couldn't blame anyone more than himself. 

For years, Sam had not even wanted to talk to another man. Then when he began to think he might like to try, he discovered that he had even fewer useful skills than he had before Gabriel, considering his skittishness and crushed confidence. Gabriel had enjoyed him; he knew because Gabriel never bothered with anything he didn't enjoy. But Gabriel hadn't loved him. He had used him and left him, and Sam was damaged goods, and it was impossible to forget that when trying to talk to someone new. 

Dean had gone back to teasing him when he had shown a small amount of interest in returning to the land of the living. He had egged him on about trying to talk to Castiel. 

So it was Dean's fault. 

“What's my fault?”

Sam groaned into the phone. “I told him I listen to classical music!”

“So?”

“So…I don't know anything about classical music!”

Dean shrugged over the video chat. “Lie. I do it all the time. Hey, I ever tell you about the time I convinced a woman I was FBI?”

“You did?”

“No. See? Did it right there. It's easy.”

Sam's eyes rolled. “Lie? That's your brotherly advice?”

“Look, I remember all those years ago when you asked me over the phone how to talk to girls. And you pulled it off really well. Then you gave up the act, and your love life plummeted. You realize you had more dates as a fake straight guy than you've had as a real gay guy?”

“I hate you a little bit right now.”

“Anyway, why is any of this my fault?”

“Because! I kept hearing you in my head, nagging me to keep trying to talk to this guy that had just admitted he liked seeing me naked! All I could think was, if Dean finds out he said that and that I ran away, he’s never going to let me hear the end of it! So I had to keep talking, even after my freaking brain had tapped out, and that's what fell out of my mouth! I love classical music! It's my favorite! Listen to it all the time! You know how much I know about classical music?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing! It's like when I took Blake Sarah out that time, and he's trying to tell me all about his new art gallery, and all I could think of was that I was going to have to pick out a wine, and I couldn't pronounce any of them, let alone know what any of them are!”

Dean snorted. “Dude, you gotta stop going after the uptown boys. Get yourself some-”

“What?” Sam demanded. “Some mechanic? Because there are so many gay mechanics waltzing out of their closets.”

“Dude, you're an openly gay mechanic.”

Sam's frustration was reaching a fever pitch. “Open to who? You point out all the time that I don't freaking talk to people!”

Dean rolled his eyes at him. Sam was certain that's why he insisted on video calls, just so he could be sure Sam knew exactly how much of an idiot he thought he was. “Stands to reason, then, that you're not the only shy, gay mechanic out there.” He stabbed his fork into his dinner plate, and left it there as he leaned in closer to his phone. “Sammy, you're living next door to a hot gay guy who thinks you're sexy. So you lied about getting his boring music. Who cares? You're not marrying him. If he asks too many questions, tell him you thought he meant classical rock.”

His forehead hit his palm, and his eyes closed. “This is so stupid. When did I get so stupid?”

“I was there when you were born, dude. You were kind of dumb back then.”

“Screw you.”

Dean laughed, and sat back up straight. “You're not stupid,” he soothed. “You just got your throat kicked in, and you're relearning how to breathe.”

There was a pause. Then Sam lifted his head. “That's exactly what this feels like.”

His brother nodded. “You think I don't pay attention when you talk. Sometimes I do. Look, Sammy, you were in over your head with Archnemesis.”

Sam snorted out a laugh at Dean's name for Gabriel. Tears were threatening behind his eyes, but he smiled anyway. 

“But you don't have to pretend to be something you're not for this new guy. Because what I know and Archie didn't is that you're an amazing guy as you are. If he would rather have a dude who can rattle off what wine goes with what dish, tell him to go find one. But if he wants a guy who will try a wine he's never heard of for the new experience? That's you. If he wants a guy who can talk about everything from quantum physics to NASCAR while on his fifth beer, that's you too. If he wants a guy who drinks a gallon of water in a sitting because he jogs in the heat like a moron-”

“Yeah, okay,” he laughed. 

Dean smirked at him. “I'm saying, give this guy a chance. So far, he seems to have good taste. Just be Sam.”

That night, after his shower, Sam spent too much time thinking about the afternoon he had spent helping Castiel find a shop where he could buy a decent espresso machine. Then, instead of making dessert at home, the man had opted to try a little shop they ran across which claimed to be an Italian cafe and bakery. 

It turned out to offer acceptable facsimiles of the treats Castiel craved from home, and he delighted in telling Sam all about how the sweets were made and why they were better than anything else in the world. 

Sam had truly loved seeing how happy the discovery of the café had made his new friend. “Now you can have a little bit of home whenever you want.”

Castiel had smiled. “They tell us America has everything. We say it is because Americans import it all from us. Now I feel grateful they do, because I am eating tiramisu with a good American man, and is better than being home. I miss my home, Sam. But I cannot go back right now, and you are kind and smart and handsome, and I appreciate the welcomes Kansas give to me.”

Sam could have listened to that accent and deep voice all night long. But Castiel faded quickly. His body was still tuned in to Bari’s clock, and when Sam drove them back, he simply thanked the mechanic warmly, kissed him on each cheek, with his hand clutched between his own, and disappeared into the main house with his new espresso machine in tow. 

He told himself the touch meant nothing, that it was a European equivalent of a pat on the back. But it felt like more than that, even hours later. 

It was no surprise to hear a melody playing very early the next morning. This time, it was sweet and soft and a little hopeful, and it shifted Sam's dreams from anxious uncertainty into a world of peace and constance.


	6. Knowing isn't the goal

It had never been more clear that he could not go home now, maybe not for a very long time, not if he wanted to retain any quiet in his life. The fallout from his whistle blow had expanded to include several officials in Madrid, and even one in Lisbon. The name Castiel Martelli had become known in common households, and not because he had a great deal of clout in the world of classical music. The music world was abuzz with gossip, and both the lawyer Leonard Kitsune and Luna had both informed him that there was speculation flying about that Castiel was Grigori’s scorned lover, that he himself had been benefitting from the corruption, but had gone to the authorities as revenge when Grigori jilted him. 

“No one really believes that, Cas, no one who knows you. And Kitsune’s been pointing out to every camera shoved into his face that there is absolutely no investigation into your guilt, that none of the authorities believe you were anything but a good man trying to do the right thing.”

“A stupid man, you mean.”

“No! Cas, nobody could have known this would lead right to Grigori himself! You learned something, and you reported it, and that's all. No one honestly thinks you did anything wrong. They just like to gossip. You know that. It'll be someone else's name in the papers in a week.”

He had tried to smile. “Yes. I'm sure,” he lied. “And what about you, Luna? Are you well?”

She laughed quietly. “Are you kidding? With you gone, I'm being named first chair. I feel guilty, but I'm not dumb. I'm saying yes.”

Castiel's heart seized in agony, but he nodded, even as he squeezed his eyes closed against the image of all his hard work crashing down around him. “Yes. You should. You deserve it. No one would ever blame you for taking the opportunity. Certainly not me.”

“As soon as you're home, I'm sure they'll correct it.”

He reached for a bottle of wine on his counter with trembling hands. “No,” he said weakly. “No, they're making the correct move now. I'm sure it made Lucas Myling cringe to offer that chair to an American. That will be my consolation.”

She laughed, a little brighter this time. “So you're really not angry with me?”

“Of course not. Luna, you work very hard, and you have amazing talent. If they have to give my position, and of course they do, I'm glad it's yours. I prefer solo anyway.”

There was a pause, then Luna cleared her throat. “So? How is the house? Meeting your needs?”

He rested the phone on his shoulder while he opened the bottle. “Certainly. I'm grateful. Except…” He poured a generous glass before speaking again. 

“Something wrong?”

“You didn't warn me I would have such lovely neighbors.”

At last, the tension was gone, and Luna let out a giggle. “Neighbors? Plural? Sam dating someone, or did you catch a glimpse of his hot brother?”

Castiel smiled into his wine. “I'm not sure I could handle two Winchesters.”

She purred lewdly. “Oh, I could. Too bad Sam is so shy and gay. And meeting Dean once has ruined me for anyone-”

“Say that again, please.”

“Dean? That's the brother-”

“No. The other thing.”

“Sam's shy and gay. Oh! Oh, you didn't know the hot guy next door is gay. Oh, nice.”

Castiel's head was spinning, and he threw back his glass of wine. “Shy. And gay.” He poured another glass immediately. “This explains so much.”

“What's that mean?”

He shook his head. “Why do you even know how to say shy and gay in Italian?” he laughed, succumbing to a bit of giddiness. 

“I was trying to describe you once.”

This nearly made him snort his wine. “Shy and gay? That's how you think of me?”

“Among other things.” Her voice softened suddenly. “I already knew the words for brilliant, kind, and talented.”

He smiled. “You are a good friend, Luna.”

“You're a good man, Castiel. And I'm still too in awe of your genius. But I'm glad we can also call one another friends.”

It was a mere two hours and a bottle of wine later, when Castiel knocked on Sam's door, still clutching the bottle. There was some confused shuffling behind the door, and Castiel took the opportunity to put the wine bottle to his lips, and swallow a little more. When the door finally opened, he simply sighed. 

Sam was staring down at him with huge hazel eyes. “Cas? Are you...drunk?”

He burst into laughter and gripped the bottleneck tightly. “Don’t ask stupid questions,” he sputtered in a thicker accent than usual. 

His new friend opened the door wider, and stepped out. “Are you all right? What happened?”

Castiel nodded. “I found a wine cellar.”

“And?”

“And I drank it.”

A slow smile brightened Sam's face. “Wow. Okay. Um, considering this is Kansas, and what you probably found was the storm shelter, I'm going to assume you aren't real particular about your wine.”

“It is Italian. Good enough.”

He snickered. “I'll have to tell Dean.”

“Tell what?”

“Nothing. Do you, um, want to come in?”

Castiel scoffed. “Sam, I been drinking since noon o’clock. Of course I want to come in.”

The man’s eyebrows shot up. “Since noon o’clock, huh? Maybe we better get you into your own space.”

He didn't argue. Instead, he let Sam lead him back to the main house, and onto the couch, and at some point he had lost his wine bottle. “Sam, you, ehhhh…” 

Sam was chuckling at him, but he was also helping him sit up and laying a blanket over him. 

“You are a beauty, Sam.”

The smile came with a rolling of his eyes. “Thank you. But I don't think you're a reliable judge right now.”

He scowled at him. “I'm not a judge. I'm a pianist. I should be in concert halls. I should be first chair. I work so hard to be first.” He began to laugh, but it caught on sobs in his throat. “I work so hard to be any chair instead of making chair. My father, he make all thing, chair too. Carpenter. I am trained this way too. But I don't love this. Not like music. Not like my piano, my violin, my cello. Even viola. I work so hard. I don't sleep for many years if I can work instead. My father, he too work so hard to let me to live as I want, not poor and dirty. He die for my love of music, work to death to get me close. And now, I am stupid, and I destroy it all.”

Sam sat beside him on the couch, and he watched him with such compassion that Castiel felt a wave of affection wash over him. “What happened?”

He heard himself telling Sam, relaying the whole ridiculous story of how a chamber musician had taken down a corruption ring led by the President of the Senate himself. He even told him about the way people were inventing new stories, that he was a spiteful throwaway lover. It was humiliating. 

But Sam just listened, and nodded, and cringed, and smiled sadly in all the right places. “I'm so sorry, Cas,” he said finally. 

Castiel swallowed hard. “I'm not so drunk as I need to be.” He had been talking for nearly an hour now. He could tell because he wasn't numb anymore. The wine was beginning to abandon him, just like most of the rest of the world. 

“I don't think it's a good idea for you to drink any more.”

“I often do things which are not good ideas.”

Sam snickered quietly. “So do we all.”

“Have you thought of a favorite, Sam? I would play for you.”

The handsome man took a long breath and spoke quickly. “Liszt.”

Interest piqued in his mind, and he ran through his mental repertoire of pieces. “Really? Which one?”

“The-the Sonata in, um, B minor.”

His smile spread, and he could feel the aching drift away. “It is, ehhh, fascinating. Some say it is about the Garden of Paradise, the corruption of Lucifer, perhaps a study of angels and demons.”

“Right. That one.”

“That is a very complex piece!”

“Is it...a bad choice?”

Castiel began to shake his head. Then he stopped, and looked at the way Sam was fretting, with his lip in his teeth. Realization came over him as he remembered the way Luna had described him. “Sam? I enjoy your company very much. I would not mind if you were not much familiar with the music I play. Do you know this?”

Sam's gaze fell to stare at his own large hands. “Sure. Of course.” He took a deep breath. “It's just that it's so important to you, and I felt like such a hick when you talked about all the places you've been and things you've done. You've played for the Queen of England, Cas. Until I did a bunch of research all day today, I couldn't have even picked a cello out of a lineup.”

Castiel felt his wine head clearing, and he took Sam's hand in each of his own. “Please. What is hick?”

His friend sputtered a bitter laugh. “It's me, Cas. It's a country boy who has never been anywhere or done anything. It's a guy who maybe once could have been smart enough to go to college, but missed his chance because there's never any money, and there are cars that need fixing. It's a guy who thinks classical music is kind of cool, but doesn't know anything about it, and really, really doesn't want to admit that to the worldly Italian man he just met. I'm a hick, Cas. And it's all I've ever been. So maybe you can understand why I'd want to pretend not to be, just for a while, because it's all I'm ever gonna be.”

“You are wrong.”

Sam looked up at him suspiciously. 

He held Sam's hands tighter. “You are good, Sam. It is discourage when I see how bad some people can be, but I am encourage when I meet you. You help at every turnaround. I arrive, and you help. I say hello, and you help. You are good like no one else. You are valuable. You are smart when you can talk, and you are beautiful when you cannot. You have opinion, but I am telling to you, it is wrong.”

The words seemed to glance off their target, and Sam remained skeptical. “I just want to help,” he said. “If I can. It's what I like. You don't have to say-”

“I have to say nothing. Yet I say and say until you believe. And I love you for research, and I love you for try. But these are things that make you lovely, Sam. Not knowing. Trying.”

“What-what does that mean?”

“I never will know music, Sam. Never in all my life. Because there is yet more to learn. You are still to learn, but so am I. Music is infinite, Sam. You never can know it. You can only love it and worship and learn until hearts burst with it. You are the same, Sam! I would learn and learn about Sam, and never know him, and I would keep trying all my life.”

Sam stared at him in silent awe. 

When he pressed his lips to Sam's, he thought the man might leap away, or lean forward. Instead, he simply sat, stunned, and received the kiss without moving. Castiel laughed up at his frozen face. “I apologize, except that I think it was not a mistake?”

Immediately, Sam released like a coiled spring, and dove into his arms to return the kiss, without another word. 

It was nice that he wasn't so drunk anymore. He didn't want to miss anything this beautiful man wanted to give him.


	7. Fixated

What Sam didn't know certainly didn't hurt him. In fact, he found that he was wholeheartedly ready for Castiel to take him to school. 

It began with kissing, and Sam was hopeless for kissing. He could have kissed this man all night long, and Castiel was indulgent. After about an hour of storytelling, Castiel seemed perfectly happy to sit back and let his wine buzz fade and let Sam explore every way their mouths could connect. 

Before long, Sam realized he was doing what Gabriel had always complained about, what the very few other men in his life had complained about-taking far too long to “light this candle.” So he mumbled an apology into Castiel's breath, and hurried to progress the action. 

Castiel would have none of that. “What are you sorry for?”

Sam laughed nervously. “I'm fixating. You'll get bored.”

“Fixating?”

He nodded sheepishly. “I just love kissing. And I've been told I need to move on faster. Sorry.”

Castiel took Sam's face in his hands when he tried to duck his head. “Who tells you this? Who? Not me! We are inviting someone else to give opinions?”

Sam was horrified to hear himself giggle. “No, I mean, don't you want...something else?”

The musician was smiling at him when he dared glance up. “Sam, you are sunshine. I learn the word sunshine and I said I would never use it. It is the only time I ever have use it in English. You are sunshine.”

Soft pleasure was thrumming through his heart with every beat now. “I just mean-”

“Sam, you like to kiss me?”

“Yeah. I love it.” His gaze wandered back to stare at those pink lips with hunger. 

“And that make me happy. Why change what we are both happy for? You like to kiss me. I like that you like to kiss me. Of course I want something else. Madonna mia, Sam, I want everything else! But especially I want you happy. You change nothing for men of your history. I am here now, and I say that you deserve every kiss you wish.”

Part of his brain wondered if it were actually possible to fall in love so quickly, and the other part reminded him bitterly that it had taken under two minutes with Gabriel. But everything about Castiel was soothing, pulling him in, promising his heart sanctuary, and unlike his frantic mind, his heart was happily, blindly, stumbling toward the musician as though it had never been torn apart and kicked until it bled in misery. The stupid heart had no memory of such things. It wanted affection; it ached and ached and ached for affection. It pushed past his fears and dove headlong into Castiel's arms. 

The silky passion in Castiel's kiss made Sam's breath fail him. Every now and then, he let out a satisfied hum, a quiet sigh, and it made every muscle in Sam's body shiver with excitement. 

Castiel gradually pushed forward. He took Sam's hands, looked him in the eyes for confirmation, then stood to lead him to another room. Sam followed, kept their lips slotted together whenever possible, and gave a tiny, involuntary whimper when he realized he was being led to a bedroom. 

He might have followed this man anywhere in that moment. Would his heart never learn?

“You are okay, Sam?” The question was whispered in a rumbling voice that made Sam shiver. 

Was he okay? Was he safe? Was he going to make it out of this with any part of himself left intact? “Want you,” he breathed back. It was the only truth he could find to respond with. “Want you.”

Castiel smiled, and pressed Sam into the bedroom until he was falling backward onto a bed. His breath left him for an instant, and it was like being under the lake water after a dive, propelled by the momentum deeper and further from shore, but compelled by his need for air to rise. 

And all the while, he chose Castiel's kisses over renewed breath. 

Yet Castiel didn't feel like drowning. Not the way Gabriel had. He felt all the delicious, dizzying effects of the dive, but none of the danger. 

Sam began to grin with a new sense of confidence he had rarely felt in his life. He twisted their bodies to pin Castiel below him with his sheer bulk, and delighted in the way the intense blue eyes watched him with wonder. 

“Like I said,” he teased, then he nipped playfully at Castiel's jaw, making those eyes darken with want. “I have a bit of a fixation.”

Castiel's breath ran shallow as Sam dismissed his clothing efficiently, and helped himself to the skin beneath. He tested Castiel's word that he didn't need to rush, by kissing and mouthing his way down his throat and chest, returning up to those lovely arms, down each one, only to lick and suck at his long fingers. He adored the small sounds of arousal that Castiel let escape with no attempt to muffle himself, or to hurry Sam along. 

Sam licked his own lips. How had his day gone from frantically researching classical music online in order to have something to talk to the man next door about, to asking in a hoarse voice about a condom?

The musician directed him to find protection buried inside a stuffed duffel bag that was waiting to be unpacked. Sam hurried to retrieve it, and felt a bit of giddiness as Castiel's gaze followed him without blinking. He smiled at the packaging, written in Italian, then tore it open to roll onto Castiel gently. In doing so, he continued licking his own lips, and he could feel his mouth literally beginning to water with anticipation. It had been a very long time. And who knew if he would be given the chance again. If Castiel was willing to indulge him, he was going to take his time for this. 

He looked up into his lover's eyes, waiting. 

Castiel had put his hands behind his head, and was watching Sam with a raised eyebrow and a soft smile. When he realized Sam's hesitation, the smile grew, as did his arousal. He hummed deep in his throat. “Continue,” he said quietly. 

Sam let the voice seep into his skin, and he sighed contentedly. Without another lost moment, he lowered himself to take Castiel into his mouth, with enthusiasm borne of lonely desire, which had built relentlessly over the last few years. Right away, there was dizzy relief. He wanted this. He wanted everything about this. He wanted everything Castiel was willing to give, and it had to be that, had to be given. Sam didn't know why exactly, but he needed a lover who would continuously reassure him that he was wanted, that he felt good, that he was pleasing him. It was what he wanted most in any man's arms, the constant promise that he was wanted there. 

Pleasure ran through him as his lips closed over Castiel, and he felt Castiel’s hand stroke through his long hair. He couldn't help promising himself that one day he would get to do this without a condom, that he and Castiel would be tested and exclusive, and he could run his tongue and lips over bare skin and-

“Sam, you are too beautiful. You feel too good. You cannot be real.”

The delivery of soft praise simply fed Sam's hunger and desire. There was none of Gabriel's obscenity or crudeness about it. It was just a loving, sincere, steady melody playing in his ear. Sam knew he enjoyed using his mouth far more than most, and he knew he was good at it simply because of the sheer pleasure he took in the act. But having a lover whose voice and breath expressed such appreciation, and also who could manage to make him feel so safe at the same time, was a new experience entirely. The caress of fingers in his hair was affectionate instead of a power play. Castiel did nothing to hurry him or control him, and what little direction he did give was spoken in tender tones, alongside that warm praise. 

This, Sam realized as he coaxed a gratifying orgasm from Castiel. He watched his lover gasp and sigh, and felt him immediately reach for Sam to kiss him while waves of bliss flowed through him. This. This was what it meant to make love. How had Sam ever thought he had made love in the past? This was it. This was the way it was supposed to be. 

“Sam,” Castiel panted. “You cry? Have I hurt you?”

Emotions assaulted him without mercy. “No. No, I'm sorry.”

Gentle hands were on his face, lips on his mouth, and their bodies entangled. “Never be sorry, Sam. Never be sorry. Tell me. I want to know.”

Sam shook his head. “I've never had a man...I never…” The tears were humiliating, but somehow he still felt safe with Castiel. “I've always wanted a lover who would kiss me after. Who would...It doesn't matter. I'm sorry. I'm ruining all this.”

But those blue eyes would not release him. “No. Do not be sorry. Sam, you have not been loved correct. You let me love you. Please. I do it correct. So you tell me what you want, and you get this from me. It is my honor to give.” The accent was thicker post-coitus, which was both sexy and adorable, and Sam felt his smile returning. 

“It's okay. It's not a big deal. It's just that I've only been with a few people, you know, and-and I really like going down, a lot, but I always hated the way...I always felt like they finished and then dismissed me. They might offer to get me off, or whatever, but as soon as they had gotten off, any real connection was over. And I was always left feeling...like the whole thing had nothing to do with me, like I had done what I was there for, and I should just get up and leave them alone. Stupid, right?”

The flush on Castiel's cheeks was beginning to fade. But the gentle concern and affection remained. “Yes,” he growled in a protective tone. “Stupid that any man could ever miss opportunity to make you feel love. Sam, let me. Not just now. Let me be what every man in your history was too stupid to be. I am very smart. I love you correct, if you let me to.”

And God help his scarred heart, but Sam was going to do just that.


	8. Play on

Castiel's heart heard Liszt differently in the morning. He played the Sonata with sheet music saved on his tablet. It was music he had played, even performed, many times before. But it was like an entirely different composition now. It would forever be associated with Sam Winchester for him, and because of that, he never wanted to stop playing it. 

He could remember a morning, years before, when he had idly picked melodies out on his piano with his left hand, while the right smoked cigarettes down to the ash. Behind him, a too-familiar sigh sounded. 

“You'll kill yourself with those things.”

Castiel had smiled grimly and taken a long drag in rebellion. “What do you care, Mèng? I'm not your problem.”

Baku Mèng heaved another of his awful sighs. Castiel would miss him terribly, except for that sound. “You are being dramatic.”

He had snorted at that. “Forgive me. I know how much you loathe passionate Italian men.”

His lover was glaring at him. He could feel it, though he refused to look at him. “You knew I would leave,” he argued again. Castiel had lost count of how many times Mèng had reminded him of this. “I never lied to you.”

“No. No, you never for a moment let me think I meant anything to you. Thank you for that.”

“I have obligations to my family, Castiel! You have no family! You cannot possibly understand!”

He continued to pick out the bitter melody but turned to stare at his cigarette. “I have an obligation to my father,” he muttered. “He gave me everything. He gave me freedom to decide for myself how to live my life, and I am obligated to live it the way I am meant to.”

Mèng persisted in packing his last two bags behind him. “And I must live as I am meant to.”

“Married to a woman.”

“You may find one day, Castiel, that it is what is best for you too. Use your passion for your music, where it is meant to be. Use your brain for marriage.”

Just then, Castiel's brain could process little more than heartache and grief. “Do you remember the first time we played together?”

Mèng’s crashing about ceased for a moment, then began again. “I remember every time we played together. And I always will. I'll hold those memories dear in my heart. But I will not be swayed by them to neglect my family responsibilities.”

“I hope to forget them as soon as you leave tonight.” It was the cruelest thing he could say to his lover of nineteen glorious months. That was why he had said it. He needed proof that he wasn't the only one who hurt, the only one who felt something good was being lost. 

“Xīngān-”

“No!” At last, Castiel whirled on him, dropping his cigarette into his ashtray and letting tears smear his glare. “No, you don't get to call me that anymore.” His voice was hoarse, from smoking, and from a sleepless night spent begging Mèng to reconsider. “I was good to you.”

Mèng flinched. But he stood firm. “You were always good to me. And you can forget me if you must, but I will never forget you. I wish you all the passion you desire, Castiel Martelli, though I doubt you will ever find enough for your appetite.”

He hadn't forgotten Mèng. 

But here he was, years later, healed and playing Liszt with both hands, proving him wrong. 

Sam stretched in the bed behind him, and hummed with pleasure as he took in his surroundings. “Mmm. Good morning.”

“It is rare, someone can sleep when I play,” he teased. 

His new lover chuckled. “I'm beginning to like sleeping with your music. But I do miss you all the way over there.”

“Do you know the song?” He smiled to himself. He knew the answer, but that was okay. 

“Uh...maybe, um...you know...Schubert?”

Castiel's smile brightened, and he turned it on Sam. “You did research!”

Sam appeared shocked. “You mean that was right?”

“No,” he laughed. “But close! This is the Sonata you requested. Liszt.”

Watching the soft pink fill Sam's cheeks was a new favorite hobby. “Oh. Yeah. I listened to a bunch of stuff online, and picked out the one I liked the best. But a lot of them sound the same.”

This young man fascinated Castiel. “You never have to pretend for me, Sam.”

Sam's soft voice dropped into sarcasm. “Yeah, I'll remember not to pretend to be anything at all. Because I'm definitely not. Cas, what am I doing here? I mean, you're this amazing musician. You’ve played for world leaders, and royalty. The closest I've come to anything that resembles an accomplishment is that I can pull a totaled Camaro back from the brink of death, and I've fixed Esther Okami’s air conditioning unit nearly a dozen times. You're an internationally-known classical musician, and I'm locally-known for being able to fix a boat motor but not my life. What am I doing here, man?”

English was easier today than it had been last night. But Castiel still had to concentrate on Sam's speech to understand. He narrowed his eyes, then lifted himself from the piano bench and returned to the bed to sit beside his lover. 

Sam lowered his gaze, as he so often did. 

“Sam? My father work with his hands. I know hard work. I have no patience for one who does not. I have true respect for those who do. Never think for any instant your work is not so much important as mine. You put your hands to work, every day, to help people, to make fixes. And you are artist, Sam. I see it in your eyes as we make love. My father is gone, but would approve that I find you.”

There was quiet desperation in those hazel eyes, seeking reassurance constantly. 

Castiel reached up, and stroked soft, sable hair from Sam's forehead. “I have try to make love to others. I always am wrong. I love no one so much as my work. No one love me so much as his. You, Sam, you are different. You do not know music, tesoro mio. But it does not matter, because you are make up of music.”

Sam stared at him in awe. “What do you mean?”

“You are music, tesoro mio,” he said again. “Your heart sing for me. Your smile, your laugh, your body, your strength, it is all music I look for my whole life. You are melody I have always ache to play.”

Sam spoke voicelessly. “But you don't even know me.”

“You showed to me your soul last night, tesoro, and I listened to it.”

His sweet lover blinked rapidly. “What's it sound like?”

“Strong, soft, steady. My own is dark but hopeful, always. In us each, I hear pain, and yet our melody remains unbroken.”

Sam laughed in a sad tone. “Yeah. If I were truly breakable, I wouldn't be here by now. It's all I got, maybe, but I won't break. Not really. You want steady? I'm steady. You want strength, I got that. You want a survivor, I am that. I'm also stupid. So if you promise to love me, I'll do absolutely anything for that, for you. I can make it on my own. But, God, I want to be wanted.”

Castiel put his hands on the man's cheeks, pulled him in for a kiss, then let their foreheads rest together. “Sam, I want you. You are exactly what my heart want. I look for you for so long. I listen for your song all my life. You say I don't know you, but I know my own heart, and it want yours for its own. Our histories make us stronger for each other.”

“I want to believe you.”

He kissed him again. “Make me to prove this to you, mio bel tesoro. I prove it every night, and every note I play, and everytime we touch.”

Sam laughed. It was such a lovely little tune. “Are you always so…”

He sat back. “So?”

“You're very passionate.”

Castiel held his breath. 

“I love that.”

Relief blew out in a sigh. “I am told I am too dramatic. I cannot be anything less. I am conservative in many way. But in love and music, I must be who I am.”

The infatuation in Sam's gaze was simply beautiful. “I love who you are. I'm just terrified that it's...you know...not sustainable?”

“Sustain…” Castiel frowned in concentration. “Sostenibile. Ah.” He chuckled quietly, and let his fingers rub light paths down Sam's jaw. “You are new to Italian men, and to musician. And you know nothing about Italian musician. I will not burn out, mio dolce amante. I will burn only hotter in time. Give to me time. I will prove this is so.”

Sam took a deep breath, and stood out of the bed on long legs. He kissed Castiel's forehead lightly, then disappeared into the bathroom. 

Castiel waited. He moved back to his piano bench, and began to play again. His music took on an anxious tone. Had he pushed Sam too hard too fast? Could he be wrong somehow? His heart had already fallen for this sweet man. What if Sam-

The door reopened, and Sam towered over the room with Castiel's heart in his hands. 

The musician held his breath again. 

“I stole your mouthwash. And I want to spend all day today kissing you. You got time?”

His grin was laced in relief and affection. “Always.”


	9. Desperate Deception

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warning for language and Gabriel's filthy mouth.

Sam had been in his usual routine before his afternoon encounter with Castiel. After leaving Dean, he had walked home. Once there, he had gone through his bills online, and balanced everything to the penny while eating a lonely dinner. Then he had watched a pre-season football game and finished a beer. He had considered porn, but found that he wasn't in the mood. He had been tired by that point, but he irrationally fought against sleep. This was his first weekend off in who knew how long, and he didn't know when those stars would align again. So, despite what he had said to Dean, he didn't want to waste the whole time sleeping. 

He had taken a night swim. It had been a beautiful moon, and he had bathed in the cool lake water underneath its light in contentment. 

Nothing had ever felt as easy as this lake. Not in his whole life. All things considered, he was damn lucky to have his tiny apartment, where he could walk to and from all three jobs, and he could jump in the lake anytime he pleased. Esther Okami had made the rent affordable for him, because she said she felt safer having him around, and he had been beyond relieved when her daughter had continued the arrangement. His only other option was to tuck his tail and move back in with Dean. Big brother would have let him freeload, and would never have given him a hard time about it. But it would just be one more thing in life Sam couldn't do on his own. Just one more failure.

Sam swam until his heart was light again, and then he had gone back home to sleep. The piano next door was playing softly, and he smiled as he drifted off. That Castiel guy was amazing. He didn't care how much Dean teased him. He could be content just being near the musician. If all he had were his fantasies to keep him company, at least he had a handsome Italian pianist playing him lullabies while he dreamed of them. That was enough. 

That would never be enough again. 

Sam's whole body ached with pleasure. He stared at Castiel, who slept like an angel beside him, as if he hadn't just given Sam the most powerful night of his life. Again, he felt himself fighting to stay awake, but this time, he had more than just his own thoughts and fantasies playing in his head. He was warm all over, his every muscle was depleted, every desire satisfied. When Castiel had claimed to be passionate, he had been understating the reality of it. In truth, he was a hurricane that Sam was attempting to catch in a butterfly net. Out of his league didn't even describe it. Castiel was so far out of Sam's league that he was convinced they were playing entirely different sports. 

At last, a twitch of anxiety pinched his stomach, and his smile began to fade. He watched Castiel with a growing fear creeping into his throat. 

“What am I doing?” he murmured without voice. “I've been here before. Maybe this was better, but that just means it's going to hurt worse in the end.” He felt his eyes begin to burn. “I've never…” He blinked hard. “I'm never going to learn. I'm so stupid.”

Castiel sighed, but did not stir. 

Sam was quiet for a long time. He laced his fingers into Castiel's, marveling at the strength and delicacy there. It was strange the way the musician seemed to be both powerful and fragile at the same time. 

It felt so good to have another man's hand in his own. Sam had never let himself think too much about being lonely. But he could feel it all in his chest now when he tried to take a full breath. 

“I know you're just slumming, okay?” he hissed. “I get it. You needed a distraction from all that crap back home. Maybe you wanted to try out an American. I don't know. But I get that it ain't forever. Just...just please don't leave without saying goodbye. If you're going to rip out my heart, and we both know you will, just leave me. Don't disappear. I wouldn't be able to...I can't take that again, okay? You want to hook some poor trash Kansan boy, well, you got one. But when you move on, don't do it like he did. Don't use me up and disappear like he did. I won't recover this time.”

Every man in his past-and there had really only been three of any note-had morphed into one man in his memory. They were all Gabriel. Perhaps Gabriel had been the most devastating, but the other two had broken pieces of Sam as well, and he thought of them all as a collective. 

Gabriel had been profane in bed. It had been exciting, confusing, disorienting. He had said things that made Sam blush, and done things Sam hadn't imagined. When Sam went down on him, there had been a steady stream of filth pouring out from Gabriel's mouth above him that left him wondering if he had just been loved or used. Now the answer was clear, and Sam hated that he hadn't known it at the time. 

“That's right. Oh, good boy. Suck me down, you big slut. God, you're so desperate for me to fuck your mouth. You'd let me do this anywhere, wouldn't you? Daddy's big, dumb cockslut, with his mouth wide open, ready for my cock any minute. God, deeper. Come on, slut. Prove to me you like this, or I'll take it away, and leave you empty. That's right. Oh, good boy...That's my good boy…”

It had just been during sex. That was Gabriel during sex, but other times, he had been tender and had lavished gifts on Sam to remind him how much he meant to him. Now Sam knew each of those items, which had been precious to him because they meant Gabriel loved and wanted him, had been bought with a credit card in his own name. Selling or returning each of them to pay his debts had been bitter in the extreme, and only reminded Sam how stupid and worthless he truly was. 

“I'm so stupid,” he whispered now. “And so desperate. I just...God, Cas. I know better. You can't love me. But I want to feel loved so bad, I'm going to pretend I don't know. I'm going to let you do whatever it is you're going to do, because I'm so…” Tears tracked down his cheeks and into the pillow below. “I just want to feel like somebody wants me. Just for a little while. Because I'm stupid. I'm big and dumb, poor trash, and I never learn. If I could just-just accept that's what I am, that there's no world where I could have been more, I'd save myself a lot of heartache. But I'm so tired of the truth, and I want to go back to lying to myself. And you seem to genuinely not know what I really am.”

That thought kept coming to the surface, and it stung, but it also made him giddy in an odd way. 

Sam smiled grimly. “I'm going to let you think I'm more than I really am, for as long as I can pull it off. Let you think I'm not just a big, dumb hick. Who's the con man now?”

Castiel sighed in his sleep again, but simply pressed closer into Sam's long body.


	10. Clarinetto, and Other Mistakes

Castiel awoke with a smile for the first time in many, many months. “Buongiorno, il mio bel tesoro,” he whispered to the enormous man lying beside him. Before Sam could open his eyes, he pressed their lips together. Then he gazed from his own pillow, while tucking a bit of that lovely, soft hair behind his lover's ear. “How will you like to be kissed today?”

Pleasure lit Sam's face like sunshine. He blinked slowly, and took a long, deep breath, as though he were inhaling Castiel's affection. Then he licked his lips. “I work tonight, at the marina bar.”

“At the...oh. I thought you fix the cars!”

Sam nodded, and sat up quickly. “I-I do. But I also tend bar. I serve drinks. And I've had a few days off, but I work tonight, from six till two. Then I'll go back to the shop at eight tomorrow morning.”

“The car shop.”

“Yeah.”

“You will give drinks at a pub all night, and work for the car shop all day tomorrow.”

His lover nodded again, and ran a hand through his hair. “Yeah. And a guy at the marina might want me to come in for a few hours after I get off my shift at four tomorrow afternoon. He texted me that he's got some boats he wants me to work on. Then I'll be back at the bar upstairs till two again.”

This was beginning to make no sense. “That does not work.”

Sam stood and sought out his jeans from yesterday. “What doesn't?”

“Your times. You are confuse.”

The man stopped and seemed to consider, then shook his head. “No. Bar tonight. Shop tomorrow. Then marina. Then bar. Then shop on Wednesday. That's right.”

“You have too many things.”

Sam snorted. “Yeah. Well, I like to work. If I didn't, why would I have three jobs, right?”

Castiel stared at him. He often had a punishing schedule, with all his commitments and travel. But this was ridiculous. “You need no sleep, Sam?”

“Not much,” he shrugged. “Anyway, I was just saying, I'm free until about five tonight, when I need to get ready for work.”

The musician sat up and let the bedsheets pool at his lap carelessly. “No! You are not free! You must sleep more!”

Sam began to laugh. “Cas, I've been working two or three jobs for going on something like four years. It's fine. And I've gotten more sleep in the last two days than in the last two months. I'm great.” A wicked grin came over him then, and he leaned back in to kiss Castiel. “And I've had more sex this weekend than I've had for years. So believe me. I'm awesome.”

But even though this made Castiel smile, it also bothered him. He mulled it over as they decided about how breakfast should go, and went about making it. Finally, he spoke up. “Sam? I wish to ask you things.”

“Sure.” Sam continued munching his fruit, but a hint of anxiety darkened his features. “What do you want to know?”

“You are definitely very smart.”

Surprise was evident in his face. “Uh...I mean, I guess I get along okay. I never went to school or anything.”

“To university,” he clarified. 

“Yeah. I mean...I was accepted, but I couldn't afford to go. I was a finalist for a scholarship, but I had a crappy guidance counselor. She botched my transcript deadline, and...It doesn't matter anymore. I didn't get it. But it's probably just as well. I don't know how well I would've done anyway. I'm a mechanic from a family of mechanics. My brother and I keep up the family business.”

“If you own the business, why do you work so many jobs?”

Sam licked his lips, then produced a tiny smile. “Well, well, I don't own the business. My brother and a family friend, Bobby Singer, they own it. I...I just work there.”

“But is it not the family business? I'm sorry. I'm confuse.”

Sam took a breath, and sat back from the table. “My brother, Dean, he tried to make me a partner. Still tries sometimes. But I don't want that shop resting on my shoulders, you know? If I go down, I don't want to take that down with me. I'd rather nobody was depending on me.”

Understanding hit Castiel in the chest. “Sam, my father was same.”

“Your father.”

“Yes. He work himself to death for me. Always, it was only him and myself. I come to know that my father feared that I depend upon him. He feared that I will need one day, and he will not be able to help. Instead many days as a child I need him, and he is working. As adult, I need him, and he is dead. Sam, do not work yourself to death for fear you are not enough for your family to depend on you.”

Sam was staring at him with parted lips. “I never really thought about it that way,” he confessed. 

“Think of it. You love your family, but you work for others. At your end, who will miss you?”

His lover sighed heavily. “Yeah. No, I know you're right. But the truth...the truth is I have a lot of mistakes I need to pay for, and I can't do what I really want to do until I've made that right.”

“You mean debt. You…” Castiel searched for his words, gesturing idly with his hand as though he could pluck the right word from the air. “You, ehh, you gamble?”

“Gamble?” Sam began to laugh. “No. No, I’d probably hyperventilate at a slot machine. My brother, Bobby and I play poker now and then, but we generally play for chips and bragging rights. And when I was bad off, I've played some darts at the bar to make a few dollars. But no. I'm not a gambler. I'm an idiot.”

Castiel's eyebrows shot up. 

Sam cleared his throat. “And-and that is definitely more than I had planned to say to you,” he chided himself. “Forget it.”

But the musician thought he might understand. “You made poor investments. This is why you must not be partner in the family business. And this embarrass you.”

“Of course it embarrasses me!”

He shook his head. “But, Sam, everyone has mistakes along his way. You know? I waste a whole year to learn clarinetto. What am I thinking, ehh? I am a strings musician! Winds take time from my violin and my beloved piano! Why do I use my time and money for clarinetto, when I do not love it? Mio tesoro, everyone do stupid mistakes. That is for learning to do better. This is how we grow smarter, not to feel stupid.”

Gorgeous, expressive, dark hazel green eyes watched him, then lowered slowly to stare at the table. “Yeah. But the problem is that I'm not sure I've learned my lesson.” He took a deep breath and lifted his gaze to look into Castiel's face, to look through him as if to judge his soul. “Where are we going with this, Cas? Are you just distracting yourself from what's going on back home? Because-because that's fine, if-if that's what this is. I mean, I'm on board no matter what but...but I'd like to know. I don't like surprises. I don't...deal well with surprises.”

At last, Castiel connected all the pieces of what little he knew about this young man, and he sighed from a sad smile. “Ah,” he breathed. He reached across the table, and felt Sam flinch away from his touch very slightly. “Ah,” he said again, and he lowered his hand to take Sam's. “You're afraid I am him. The man who use you, who did not love you correct. You think you are stupid to love him, and you think you are stupid to love me. Sweet Sam. Dolce, ferito uomo.”

Sam seemed to be curling into himself. He was inching away, as if ready to run for the door. “Maybe I should go. Maybe it's better if we just had a really amazing weekend, and now we can just be good neighbors till you leave for Italy again. If you-if you want to get together, to, um, to hook up again some night, you...you know where to find me.” 

Castiel smiled sadly. “They say Italian men can be too fast. That we don't fall in love, but we dive into it. Mèng, a lover in my history, told me it is not sensible the way I throw my heart and passion away. But I do not know how else to live, and I do not know how else to love.”

He touched Sam's hand, cautiously so as not to frighten him away. 

“Some of us, Sam, we do not need long times before we know we love. Mèng call me ridiculous. But I know what my heart is. So I find a gentle and passionate heart like yours, and I fall, but it is no mistake. It is a dive. Just as you dive in the lake, I dive in for love.”

Sam swallowed, and stared with hopeful suspicion. 

“Maybe the man of your history can walk away from such a man as you. I think that makes him the stupid one. I'm smart, Sam. I am smart enough to know I must love you. And I fall deeper every moment I spend with you. Is this too fast? Maybe. But this is how my heart work. You can accept or not, but my heart want you, like it has want nothing since first touching the piano. Per favore, dolce Sam. Do not leave me alone in love.”

The fear in the eyes of this large, beautiful creature was breaking his heart. But Sam began to nod. “He destroyed my life,” he said hoarsely. “Any confidence I ever had, it's gone. And it only took him a few months to do it.”

Castiel wanted to find a way to go back in time and prevent Sam's pain, or at least seek out and obliterate the man who had caused it. He felt incredibly protective of this man. But instead, he nodded too. “I am smart enough to know you must be loved gentle and complete. And you are sensitive enough to know I need passion in my life. Are we not a better match for one another, than you with a man who would hurry your kisses, or me with a man who would require me to be sensible in love?”

Slowly, Sam began to smile, and his eyes lit with hope. “Yeah,” he breathed. “Yeah, we’re perfectly matched. If you're for real.”

Castiel laughed, but not unkindly. “Sam, I never have learned to lie, nor deceive. It is why I am here today, instead of home. I must do what I know in my heart is right, and it punish me every time. But perhaps this time it shall reward me.”

Sam leaned forward to kiss him gently. “I like that you're a terrible liar.”

He shrugged and rolled his eyes, but continued to smile, even as a pink warmth bloomed on his cheeks. “Thank you,” he said dryly. “But in that I must confess. My name is truly Castiel Martelli.”

The large man snickered. “I know,” he admitted, and he leaned in to kiss him. “You told me while you were drunk. Like I said, I like that you're a terrible liar.”

Castiel sighed, but accepted his kisses with the teasing. It was a small price to pay for access to that delicious mouth.


	11. Fragranza di Sincerità

The day Sam was able to quit working for Terry Acheri, Dean would feel a weight lift from his chest. The guy was shady, and creepy as hell. Sam was moody on a good day, but on days when he had worked for Acheri, he was on edge. 

Dean's snarky, smartass kid brother had grown into enormous ball of quiet panic ready to come unwound at any sudden movement. He had been a shy, awkward kid, but he had also been brilliant and sharp, and confident in most ways too. Seeing the worried line on his kid brother's brow all the time now made him want to tear the lungs out of Gabriel Arch, and every other person who had ever made Sam feel less than worthy, all the way down to their crappy guidance counselor back in high school, who had been uninterested and incompetent when Sam had gone to her for help finding and applying for financial aid to attend college. 

He had tried to talk Sam out of working for the creep down at the marina. But he didn't really have any actual reason for loathing the guy, and Sam needed the cash. It was just like the Arch mess all over again. Dean could smell something off about Acheri. Dean's instincts were good. Really good. 

So when he opened the door to find a stranger standing on his front step with a soft smile and an Italian accent in his greeting, Dean immediately put his nose to work. 

“You're Cas,” he growled. 

The man nodded. “Yes. Friend to your brother, I think.”

Dean sneered at him. “You think? What, you ain't sure?”

Intense blue eyes narrowed. “You are Dean Winchester? Yes?”

He leaned on the doorjamb, and folded his arms across his chest. “Yeah. That's me.”

Castiel nodded slowly. “I am worried for Sam.”

A little of his composure slipped, and he frowned. “What? Why? What happened?”

“He, ehh, he work for you, yes?”

“Yeah.”

“But he need help. He do not say this, but I understand it to be so. He has been in trouble, yes? And he work many jobs.”

Dean stared at the man. He wasn't sure where this was going, but he smelled only sincere concern from this guy. “So?”

“I spend time with him, with Sam, many long hours to talk.”

“Talk. You mean you slept with him.”

“That too. And sex.”

Even as Dean snickered, he felt his stomach tighten. Sam hadn't been with anyone for years, and now he had fallen into bed with this guy he barely knew. Part of him wanted to be happy for the kid, and the other part was scared to death he would be hurt again. It had been like swimming through dark water for a very long time, with Sam, and things were just beginning to seem clearer. If this guy drown his brother like the last one did, Dean wasn't sure he would be able to keep himself from killing him. 

“Dean, he say to me that you are his best friend, and his only family. I have just one other friend in world, and she own the house where I am stay. House where Sam also live. And I call her tonight, when Sam leave for his work. I am to buy the home from Luna Okami. And Sam stay, and I pay him to keep the home when I travel. But Sam is…” He laughed quietly. “He is stubborn man. You help me, yes? Help me to help him? If he think I, ehh, I give to him too much, he…”

“He’ll run,” Dean breathed. He shook his head. “So you're telling me that...that just a week into knowing my brother, you-you want to buy his home out from under him, and-and what?”

Castiel licked at his lips carefully. “Please understand. I mean for him to live there. And watch over the home and dock. Make fixes sometimes. He will not pay. I will pay. He is not working too many jobs to pay to live at the home. You-you are understanding?”

“I think so. But I don't get it. Why? You barely know the guy.”

He shrugged and stuffed his hands into his pockets. “Does this matter? He is kind to a man the world has not been kind to. A man the world punish for doing what his heart say is right. A man who wants only to be simple musician and lover, and yet is throw away by men too powerful. Sam is kind. He helps. Luna Okami say he is always help for her and her mother. She say he is trusting.”

Dean smiled softly. “Trustworthy, you mean.”

“Ah. Yes. Worth to be trust.”

He cleared his throat. “He's trusting too, though. You ain't wrong there. And he's been known to trust the wrong people in the past.”

The handsome face darkened. “Yes. Men of his history is wicked and stupid. Sam is more than those men.”

“Yeah,” Dean said. “Yeah, he is. What about you?”

Castiel smiled at last. “Me? I am clever and know to love a man who is so good in his heart as Sam Winchester. But he is punish for himself to pay for mistakes of his history, and I want to help him in this small way.”

“That's not a small way, Cas. Giving my brother a safe place to live rent free, and the chance to quit one of his jobs? That would make you some kind of freaking angel, dude.”

“No angel. Just another man who know pain. He should be permit to sleep, no matter any mistakes of his history. He work enough. Lay weary head to rest, you understand?”

Dean liked this guy. He smelled genuine. 

~~~~~~~

“I mean, what happens when I screw up, right? What happens when I wake up?” He threw his hands in the air. “What happens when I wake up one day and he's gone, and I have to figure it all out, and I don't have that income? Terry wouldn't take me back. And I know better than anybody that there's no other work around here! And I would definitely have to drop my classes. I'm not taking out loans. I won't. Not that my credit is good enough anyway…”

Dean listened to the frenzied rant without interruption. He knew where the fear was coming from. When Sam finally paused for breath, he put his hand on his shoulder. “Sammy.”

His brother tore his hand through his hair, and sighed. “I'm sorry,” he mumbled. 

“Stop being sorry.”

“Sorry.” Sam heard his own mistake, and sighed again. 

“Man, you gotta relax. You're just moving in with a guy you already live with.”

“Yeah. An amazing, entirely too good-to-be-true guy who is way out of my league.”

The older man frowned. “Knock that off. There ain't no out of your league. You're top rung.”

Sam shook his head, and stared down at his own hands. “You don't understand.”

“I understand that Cas is buying the Okami place, including your apartment, so your choices are to live with this guy who adores you, who you're ass over tea kettle for, or find a new place, or move in with me. And let's be honest. There's a reason you moved out of my place years ago.”

“This is too fast. It's all moving too fast.”

Dean groaned. “Sam, you've got to recognize a good thing when you see it.”

Sam stared at him for a moment, then began to smile. “You like him, don't you?”

He shrugged. “He's better than the douche you were hanging with before. Yeah. You know I like him. I'd say so if I thought he wasn't for real. I don't know, man. I know it's fast, and if it goes south, I'll give you a landing pad.”

“Yeah. I know you would. You always have. Even when I couldn't count on anything else, I could always count on you. You've always had my back.”

Dean watched him. “That mean you're taking the chance?”

“I told Acheri to lose my number, didn't I? I don't have much choice.”

“Hey.” Dean grabbed his brother’s arm. “Hey. You got a choice. You always got a choice. But this time...You got a choice that includes something that could be really good this time. And I think you should do what you want to do, after years of doing what you think you have to. So? What do you want to do?”

The fear in his brother's eyes made him want to throttle everyone who had ever hurt him. But the spark of hope made him want to make Castiel Martelli family. “I think I'm in love with him, Dean. And-and that scares the shit out of me. But I want to trust him. I haven't trusted anybody but you in so long...I just want to trust him.”

“I always got your back, man. No matter what. But this guy seems solid. Or at least he seems like the same kind of messed up as you.”

Finally, Sam laughed, and shoved his brother. “Jerk.”

“Bitch,” Dean responded softly. He watched Sam take a deep breath and head into the main part of the house, where his future waited anxiously for his return. When the door closed behind him, Dean sighed. “Don't you hurt my brother,” he muttered. Then he turned and started his walk back to his home behind the shop. He and Sam had been walking and talking for hours, and it was now after midnight.


	12. Midnight

Sam stared into the candlelight until he felt a shiver come over him. 

His lover smiled at his sheet music. “You are cold.”

“I'm scared.”

Castiel gave him a sad sigh. “I know that you are.”

Sam looked around him blankly. “It's been two months, Cas. I've known you for two months.”

His musician continued to play at the piano keys gently. “Yes,” he agreed. “A good two month.”

“In that time, you've changed everything. You convinced me I was smart…” He heard his voice falter over the word clumsily, and he cleared his throat. “That I'm smart enough to register for classes at the community college.”

“And you are. You see that you are.”

Sam saw looming, intimidating deadlines and typos in poorly composed papers, but he shrugged. “Yeah. Okay. I-I like it anyway. I don't know if I'm going to make it to an Associate degree, let alone continue on to a Bachelors someplace, but I like it. I've already learned enough in my first class to change the way I'm keeping the books at the shop.”

“See? You see that my Sam is smart!”

Being called his Sam was probably one of the most wonderful things in the world, other than kissing him. “Yeah. We’ll see. I might fall apart once I get to practical accounting.”

“No.” Castiel was beaming proudly at the piano. “No, you are far smarter than you believe.”

The pride in the man's smile, and the praise on his tongue, was quickly becoming everything Sam lived for. “You've changed everything,” he said again. “You've bought the house, and-and I'm not paying rent, so I could quit working for Acheri at the marina, and I'm only pouring drinks once or twice a week now…”

“And soon none?” The question was quiet, and Sam knew Castiel was trying not to push the issue. 

He took a deep breath. “Yeah. Not yet, okay? But-but soon. When I've paid off a few more bills. I can't take out loans for school. I need to pay cash. If I can't…”

“Yes. I know this. I wish-”

His hand flew up. “No. Cas, I said no. You're not paying my bills for me. It's more than too much that I'm living here without paying rent. You're not going to pay me to watch the house, and you're not paying off my debts.”

Castiel went back to reading his music. “Yes. This, I know. And yet I still can wish that you will let me.”

“No. I will not give up control again. I can't. Cas, I'm in love with you, but I've only known you two months. It took Gabriel two months to destroy me, and it took me two years-more!-to recover. I wouldn't recover from you. My heart would never recover. But I still have a chance at a financial recovery-at still being independent-if I don't give in and let you take care of me. I'm not...God, Cas, I shouldn't need anyone taking care of me. I'm a grown man, and I can take care of myself. I forgot that once, and it felt really good to let somebody else make all my decisions for me, right up until the day when I had to account for all those decisions, and I couldn't. You...you…”

Castiel's fingers stroked the piano lovingly, but he frowned a little. “I?” he pressed. 

Sam sighed and approached the piano bench, to kneel down beside it. He looked up into Castiel's sad eyes, when his lover turned back to him. “You. You're so much more than me, Cas! And you're going to get bored, and you'll go back to Bari, back to your amazing life, and I'll be the one who has to pick up the pieces. I'll have to-Cas, when I was a teenager, I pretended to be a straight man, and it chewed me up for years. Then after Gabe tore through town, I pretended I didn't have my heart ripped out through my wallet. And I felt like dog food for years. When you leave, I'll have to pretend again, because I'll have to go to work everyday, and I'll have to act like I've got it together, and I'll be dying inside.”

Castiel closed his eyes, and continued to play. 

Slowly, Sam became aware of the change in the melody. He heard a familiar tune seeping into the air around them, soaking into Sam's heart. He took a shuddered breath. “Hey Jude,” he whispered. 

“Sam, mio tesoro, let me love you.”

He flinched. “Cas-”

“I will not be sensible in love. I refuse. Mèng want me to be someone I am not. Angel Grigori want me to close my eyes to pretend I do not see. You love me at my very lowest of point, sweet Sam. I love you at your most need. Why can we not lift one another? Why can we not allow each to be as he is meant to be? My smart, kind Sam, full of help and loving of kisses. Me, a simple musician wanting only to play and love with all his heart. Marry me, Sam. Will this help you to let me love you? Marry me, and let me love you the way I am meant to love, and the way you deserve being loved.”

Sam couldn't breathe. “You-you don't mean that. It's too fast.”

“Too fast for who? Why? Shall we spend more months in fear, or shall we just leap in, and then we are free to take care of one another, and money is shared between us two, and no one will be making decisions for no one, but we each will make our own decisions together. And when I go to Bari, or to Madrid or New York or London, or to Milan, you know I am returning to you. No need for breaking of hearts, no pretending. Only many kisses upon return.”

Sam began to laugh, and tears sprang to his eyes. “This might be my stupidest mistake. But you asked once if I was a gambler. I'm not. Maybe this is the time I roll the dice, huh?”

“I don't understand that reference,” Castiel murmured. 

The laugh burst out in a bark. “Good to know you're not a gambler yourself.”

Castiel sighed. “I am a pianist, Sam. Now may I marry you, or you make me ask you again?”

A wicked smile came over his face. “Ask me again.”

His lover blinked, then began to smile back. He leaned in to kiss him from his seat on the bench. “Sam, you will marry me?”

“Ask me again,” he breathed into another kiss. 

The way he could feel Castiel's grin against his own made his whole body react in giddy appreciation. “Sam, you will marry me, mio tesoro?”

Being Castiel's treasure was his greatest pride. He melted every time he heard the words. “Yeah,” he relented finally. “Yeah, of course I will. But ask me again.”

Castiel assured him with a passionate embrace that he would continue to ask as many times as Sam wanted to hear it.


	13. After Midnight

Dealing with Dean’s bitching on the plane had been worth it. Bari was the most beautiful place they had ever seen, and the wedding had been intimate but romantic, like something out of one of the movies Dean pretended not to watch. It had been incredible, meeting all of Castiel's friends from the music world. Sam's favorite part was seeing the amazement in Castiel's eyes when he realized how many people had missed him, how many truly thought of him as a friend. The last day, the two of them had walked through the neighborhood in which Castiel had grown up, and Sam had held his hand as he heard story after story about the carpenter who had raised a musician. Dean spent that time enjoying himself at the most colorful bars he could find. 

In spite of the excitement, the brothers were relieved to get back to their lives and work in Kansas. Sam decided he enjoyed travel with Castiel, but now that his world was permanently larger, he appreciated the quiet of his own lake all the more. And he was eager to return to his courses. 

Life with Castiel was passion and seemingly endless humor and gratitude, to the soundtrack of the best composers in the history of the world, as well as playful improvisation. Life with Sam was solid and thoughtful; it was steadiness and making love, colored by smirking sarcasm and shy blushes. Castiel was Sam's world, and Sam was Castiel's home. 

They barely felt the time passing. 

Sam was busy on his phone one day, responding to emails from his students, when the front door nearly hit him on his way in. He stumbled back and stared. “What-”

“Grab her!” a voice with a Kansan drawl growled. 

Sam’s long arms snatched an escaping child, and curled her into an embrace. “Kit! What are you…?”

The little girl was laughing breathlessly. “Uncle Sam!” she cried in greeting. “You'll save me!”

And wouldn't he do absolutely anything for this little monster? “What's the matter, kiddo?”

Dean's flustered face appearing in the doorway was the highlight of Sam's day so far. “What's the matter? Oh, nothing!” He was slightly out of breath. “Nothing, except your niece is tapping into her uncle's old playbook!”

Another voice hurried to clarify. “Yours, tesoro. Not mine.”

Sam snickered. “What did you do, Kit?”

Kitsune grinned at him. “I'm a fox!”

“And apparently foxes jump on their daddies’ chests while they're sleeping off a sixteen hour shift,” Castiel called out helpfully. 

He burst into laughter. “Dude, I did not tell her to do that!”

Dean glowered. “No. You wouldn't have to. It evidently just runs in the family!”

“Tesoro? Did you jump on your brother when you were children?”

“I was Batman,” he said quickly. “It isn't my fault Batman can't fly. I needed a soft landing. And he's Superman! Figured it wouldn't hurt him!”

Dean snorted at him, and raked a hand through his short hair. “Kits? You gonna say you're sorry?”

She giggled again. 

Sam forced a serious look into his face. “Kitsune?”

The girl sighed. “I am sorry, Daddy. I should wait till you're awake to jump on you.”

Dean scowled. “That would be an improvement,” he acknowledged. 

“It was pretty funny,” she whispered to Sam, who chuckled. 

“Kits!” 

“Sorry, Daddy.” She pushed out of Sam's arms, and tore off through the house instead of out of it this time. 

Dean threw his hands up. “Your husband is a crappy babysitter!” he complained. 

Castiel's piano quieted, and he stepped lightly into the foyer. “I never claim to be a good babysitter. You ask if you and Kit can come so you can sleep. You said nothing about babysitting.”

“She's six, Cas! It's implied! Why else would I come to your place to sleep?”

The pianist shrugged. “I'm sorry. I speak only Italian, English and Portuguese, and tiny bit of French. I have trouble understanding you when you are speaking whiny bitch.”

Sam knew that pink in Dean's face meant Castiel was going to pay for that comment before the night's end, but he laughed anyway. “Where's Luna?”

Dean glared at Castiel another moment, then turned to his brother. “Work. Always.”

“At least your violinist works in one city. I have trouble keeping mine on one continent.”

“It ain't so bad. She's making a hell of a lot more than I do.”

Sam smiled at him. In the past few years, he had discovered a way to combine his talents, and it was a rewarding experience. He taught the auto mechanics courses at the community college, and ran an apprenticeship program for the local high school in partnership with Dean and Bobby's shop. It gave experience to hardworking students who wanted to learn what it was like to run a small business or who wanted to go into auto mechanics themselves, and it filled the void Sam left behind under the hoods. Dean was mentoring two students in car maintenance and repair right now, and Bobby was mentoring one in business management, as well as life in general. It was an excellent opportunity for all of them, and it turned out that the Winchesters and Bobby excelled as educators. 

Sam liked that part of his job included still climbing under hoods. He didn't want to lose his connection to the family business. In fact, he was closer to it now than he had ever been. 

In the same sort of way, Castiel had returned to his own roots at times. Little projects cropped up with increasing frequency, a bookshelf here, a coffee table there, and then an exquisite piano bench, which had been his wedding gift to Luna and Dean, followed very quickly after by a gorgeous wooden bassinet. 

Castiel took fewer and fewer overseas commitments now, and played for audiences only when and how he wanted to. When he wasn't performing or pursuing his carpentry hobby, Castiel was composing music. He had been commissioned for several beautiful compositions, including one which would be played this spring by the local symphony orchestra, conducted by Luna Okami. 

“Anyway, I'm awake now, and I guess I better feed Kits. Should I cook for four or two?”

Sam smiled at his lover. “Cas?”

“I have better ideas,” he said. “Let me take all four to the restaurant in town. I want a tiramisu. I will text Luna to meet us there when she can.”

Dean sighed with relief. “That sounds great, man. I know Kits will love it.”

As he turned to find his wayward daughter, Sam called his attention back. “Hey. I'm coming into the shop tomorrow.”

His brother raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Why? My books need work?”

“No. I do. I’ve got tomorrow off, and I just want to come help out for a few hours.”

Dean's weariness faded under his grin. “Yeah? Professor gonna get his manicure greasy?”

Sam shoved him playfully. “Yeah. Stock the cooler. It's been awhile since we just talked while under hoods.”

“Man, you still don't know how to take a day off, do you?”

When he looked, he found Castiel smiling at him with lips that needed kissing. “Yeah. I do. I want to spend it with my family at the family business. Then I'm coming home to jump in the lake naked. You're not invited to that part.”

Castiel snickered. 

Dean huffed. “Right.” He headed after Kitsune again, then stopped to smile at his brother. “We’re good, aren't we, Sammy?”

Sam could feel his husband's hand slipping into his. He nodded. “Yeah, man. We're awesome.”

His kiss was landing just as the first few notes of Hey Jude rang out from Castiel's piano, played with confidence by a six year old Winchester.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed! Every comment is a treasure. 
> 
> ~Posing

**Author's Note:**

> This is a Tumblr prompt fill.


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